Love never ends

Who are you, Keith?

I am God's love.

If someone asked you who you are - depending on what day it is - your answer might look different. Life circumstances sometimes leave us having no idea who we are.

Believe me, I get that one.

But one thing never changes about who I am - it is the only constant in my identity - it IS my identity - I am God's love.

Someone might be reading this and thinking, well Keith, you don't always look like God's love. To that I will say, amen. I don't. That's because the love God pours into me doesn't always look like the love that pours out of me.

But my identity isn't who or how I love, it's BY whom and how I am loved.

My identity was defined by the one who created me. My identity is defined by WHY the one who created me created me. God created me to love me. He created me to love me with a love so powerful that once I fully embrace it, it's impossible to not love him back.

That's hard to understand - or believe - I get that. It's hard to understand because in human relationships, people stop loving one another. In human relationships, we can do things to one another that interfere with or stop the love that pours in. In human relationships, love can look so wildly different from day to day that some days it's hard to even define what love is.

But we aren't the definition of love, God is.

One of the most beautiful definitions of love ever written is found in 1 Corinthians. It reads:

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Love never ends. No matter how I see myself today - no matter how you see me today - God's love never ends. No matter how unloved I might feel today, love never ends. No matter how unloved you might feel today, love never ends. No matter what you think your identity is today - your identity - and my identity - is love never ends.

You know, I believe it's God's hope that one day we will quit wrestling with our identities and embrace the common identity of 'I am God's love.' It's in the natural celebration of that identity that the love that pours out of us starts to look a lot more like the love that never stops pouring into us.

When we come to embrace an identity that feels like love never ends, we can't help but want the people around us to feel like love never ends.

When we come to feel like love never ends, we can't help but look like love never ends.

That's just our identity.